Quote Of The Weekend: Viva Italia Edition
Fiat could do more if it could cut off Italy
Having been handed a bankruptcy-rinsed Chrysler by the American government, Fiat’s Canadian-born CEO Sergio Marchionne is beginning to see Italy as nothing more than aging, uncompetitive factories and troublesome unions. And now he’s not just telling the Italian media that not only would Fiat be better off without the country that birthed it. According to Reuters
The CEO added that not a single euro of the 2 billion euros ($2.8 billion) of trading profit that Fiat is targeting for 2010 will come from Italy, where all Fiat car passenger plants are loss-making.
The funny part: Chrysler still holds a value of precisely zero dollars on Fiat’s balance book. And with the Fiat and Alfa-Romeo brands headed to the US, Italian-ness is still an important element of Fiat’s identity. But until Marchionne’s Chrysler revival and Italian invasion take hold stateside, and as long as mother Italia is a drain on its resources, Fiat might be best described as a Brazilian company.
Italian speakers can enjoy Marhionne’s interview here.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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Does Marchionne care about Fiat at all these days? There are basically no new products being announced, and rumours of Alfa being flogged to Volkswagen abound and don't go away even though plans of selling it are routinely denied.
I admire Marchionne's flair - but Fiat needs to be known for more than the Cinquecento. It is a huge task that this guy has ahead of him. About the only thing Fiat and Chrysler have in common at the moment is that they are not the type of cars which you'd want to own with 60,000 miles on the clock.
I see that Fiat's domestic advertising is as vapid as that produced by flag-waving American automakers. What about the cars?
Suspending product launches is a ,ajor item - throws the cycle plan into disarray and what do you do with the Engineers, Designers etc during the suspension phase. I suspect a car company would only suspend launches to conserve cash. The risks of suspension inlcude lost volume due to aging product vs competitors, loss of skills as laid of engineers etc go elsewhere if they can, upset suppliers who've had their cycle plans disrupted - the list goes on.